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CATHOLIC 


MISSIONARY 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


ity' 

f3zr 


SHANDY  M’GHIRE, 


TRICKS  UPON  TRAVELLERS 

A  Story  of  the  North  of  Ireland, 


BY  PAUL  PEPPERG11ASS,  ESQ. 


In  1  volume  16rno.  in  half  cloth  binding,  50  cents; 
full  cloth,  gilt  backs,  75  cents. 

“  Shandy  M’Guire”  is  emphatically  a  “Story  of  the  North  of 
Ireland.”  The  plot  is  mainly  laid  in  the  heart  of  the  county 
Donegal,  and  the  characteristic  life  of  that  remote  region  is  beau¬ 
tifully  portrayed.  The  fair  and  the  fighting,  the  gauger  and  the 
illicit  still — the  Orangemen  and  Ribbonmen — the  grasping  agent 
and  the  suffering  cottager — <he  Priest  of  the  People,  and  the  pro¬ 
selyting  Minister  of  the  Established  Church,  are  all  successfully 
and  strikingly  portrayed. 


The  New-York  Truth  -Teller  says: — “Through  all,  and  above 
all,  is  a  tone  of  pure,  healthful  religious  feeling,  not  often  found 
in  tales  of  Irish  Life,  since  those  of  Barrow  and  Gerold  Griffin.” 


The  Boston  Post,  says: — “This  is  a  tale  of  the  oppressions  of 
Ireland,  told  by  an  Irishman  and  a  Catholic.  As  a  mere  literary 
work,  it  has  power,  pathos,  and  rural  semblance.  Some  of  the 
scenes  are  as  naturally  and  vividly  done  as  the  best  of  the  O'Hara 
Tales,  or  the  most  intense  of  the  Stories  of  Carlelon.  We  know 
of  no  American  writer  of  note  that  could  produce,  the  equal  of 
‘Shandy  M’Guire, ’  so  full  of  glowing  pictures  of  Irish  life  and 
character,  painted  by  a  man  of  ability,  and  a  warm  sympathizer 
for  the  suffering  and  outraged.” 


I 

1 


The  London  Tablet  says: — “The  story  is  amusing  and  contains 
instructions  even  for  statesmen,  if  they  have  but  the  heart  to  un¬ 
derstand  what  political  institutions  can  do  in  the  way  of  good 
and  eviL” 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


« 


https://archive.org/details/catholicmissionaOOunse 


THE  CATHOLIC  MISSIONARY. 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 

Before  our  Blessed  Lord  left  Ilis  Apostles 
and  was  taken  up  into  lieaven,  He  addressed 
this  solemn  charge  to  them:  “Go  ye  into  the 
whole  world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every 
creature and  we  see  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos¬ 
tles  how  faithfully  they  obeyed  this  command, 
how  diligent  they  were  in  going  about  from 
one  country  to  another,  “  preaching  the  Gospel 
in  all  the  cities.” 

What  the  Apostles  began,  their  successors 
continued ;  from  that  day  to  this,  the  work  of 
conversion  has  steadily  and  constantly  gone  on 
in  every  age ;  not  a  century,  not  a  half  century 
has  passed  away,  in  which  some  addition  has 
not  been  made  to  the  fold  of  Christ ;  in  which 
some  nation,  or  a  part  of  some  nation,  has  not 
for  the  first  time  heard  the  glad  tidings  of  the 

3 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


Gospel.  And  the  work  has  not  ended  yet ;  at 
this  very  moment  priests  and  bishops,  succes¬ 
sors  of  the  Apostles,  are  carrying  the  light  of 
Christian  truth  and  holiness  into  dark  heathen 
countries,  where  it  has  never  yet  been  seen,  or 
if  for  a  moment  seen,  has  been  soon  violently 
extinguished. 

I  have  seen  and  conversed  with  several  of 
these  zealous  missionaries  myself ;  one  in  par¬ 
ticular  was  a  bishop  who  had  spent  nineteen 
years  among  the  heathens  of  China,  and  had 
brought  many  hundreds  of  the  poor  ignorant 
natives  of  that  country  to  the  knowledge  of 
Christ,  and  the  salvation  of  their  immortal 
souls.  He  told  me  that,  of  seventeen  priests 
who  went  out  with  him  to  undertake  this 
work  in  1830,  he  was  now  the  only  survivor ; 
most  of  the  others  had  suffered  martyrdom ; 
and  the  few  who  had  not  been  put  to  death 
expressly  on  account  of  their  religion,  had  yet 
died  prematurely  in  consequence  of  the  exces¬ 
sive  fatigues  and  labors  which  they  had  to  un¬ 
dergo.  This  bishop  had  himself  suffered  again 
and  again  all  kinds  of  cruelties,  and  gone 
through  innumerable  dangers  in  the  execution 
of  his  holy  and  charitable  mission;  he  had 
been  placed  in  a  great  jar  or  cask,  and  buried 

4 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


alive  in  a  garden  for  four-and-twenty  hours,  as 
the  only  means  of  being  concealed  from  his 
persecutors ;  he  had  had  his  arm  broken  more 
than  once,  as  a  punishment  inflicted  by  order 
of  the  heathen  magistrates ;  besides  many  other 
things  which  I  cannot  now  mention ;  yet,  when 
I  saw  him  last  year,  he  was  just  returning  with 
undiminished  zeal  to  his  appointed  post,  there 
to  fulfil  our  Lord’s  command  to  be  “  a  witness 
unto  Him  even  to  the  uttermost  part  of  the 
earth.” 

The  labors  and  sufferings  of  apostolic  men 
like  these  cannot  fail  to  be  of  the  deepest  in¬ 
terest  to  every  Christian  who  has  any  love  for 
the  religion  which  he  professes,  any  love  for 
the  souls  of  his  fellow-creatures,  any  love  for 
the  Son  of  God  who  laid  down  His  life  on  the 
cross  that  He  might  redeem  mankind.  We 
propose,  therefore,  from  time  to  time,  to  lay 
before  our  readers  some  sketches  of  the  Cath¬ 
olic  Missionary,  whether  in  ancient  or  in  mod¬ 
ern  days,  whether  in  our  own  or  in  foreign 
lands,  whether  laboring  for  the  conversion  of 
heretics  or  heathens ;  in  a  word,  we  propose  to 
show  you,  in  a  series  of  pictures  taken  from 
different  ages  and  different  countries,  how  faith¬ 
fully  the  Church  has  always  fulfilled  this  in- 

5 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


junction  of  her  Divine  Head,  “  Going  there¬ 
fore,  teach  ye  all  nations;  baptizing  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost ;  teaching  them  to  observe  all 
things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you;” 
and  at  the  same  time  how  faithfully  that  Di¬ 
vine  Head  has  fulfilled  the  gracious  promise 
which  He  vouchsafed  to  annex  to  the  com¬ 
mand,  “  Behold,  I  am  with  you  all  days,  even 
to  the  consummation  of  the  world.” 

Our  first  picture  shall  be  taken  from  a  part 
of  the  great  continent  of  America  ;  and  a  few 
words  about  the  early  history  of  that  country 
are  perhaps  necessary,  that  you  may  be  able 
justly  to  appreciate  the  labors  of  those  mission¬ 
aries  whom  we  are  about  to  introduce  to  you. 

America  was  discovered,  that  is,  was  first 
made  known  to  the  Europeans,  about  350 
years  ago.  The  people  who  at  that  time  in¬ 
habited  it  were  most  of  them  savages,  and  all 
of  them  were  heathen;  I  mean,  by  savages, 
that  they  knew  nothing  of  the  arts  of  civilized 
life;  they  built  no  houses,  wore  no  clothes, 
lived  on  what  they  could  get  by  hunting  and 
fishing,  and  on  wild  fruits  and  roots,  which 
they  dug  up  from  the  earth ;  in  their  disposi¬ 
tions,  however,  they  were  not  otherwise  than 
6 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


gentle  and  kind ;  those  at  least  who  inhabited 
the  island  where  the  Europeans  first  landed ; 
and  when  they  saw  the  ships  in  which  these 
strangers  had  come,  and  the  strangers  them¬ 
selves  clothed  in  garments  such  as  they  had 
never  before  seen,  and  armed  too  with  spears 
and  swords  of  glittering  steel,  they  could  not 
imagine  that  they  were  human  beings  like 
themselves,  but  thought  they  belonged  to  some 
superior  race,  and  had  come  down  from  the 
skies,  or  risen  out  of  the  great  sea.  At  first 
they  were  very  much  frightened  too,  and  ran 
away ;  but  when  they  found  that  the  Spaniards 
(for  it  was  from  that  part  of  Europe  that  the 
strangers  had  come)  did  them  no  harm,  they 
came  back  again,  and  treated  them  with  great 
respect  and  confidence.  Sad  the  Spaniards 
always  continued  to  behave  towards  these  poor 
simple  savages  in  the  same  kind  manner  in 
which  they  began,  the  labor  of  a  Christian 
priest  amongst  them  might  have  been  an  easy 
and  delightful  task ;  for  seeing  the  great  supe¬ 
riority  of  the  Spaniards  over  themselves  in 
every  thing  that  concerned  this  world,  they 
might  naturally  have  been  disposed  to  listen 
with  a  very  friendly  ear  to  all  that  they  had 
to  tell  them  about  another  world,  which  they 

7 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


could  not  see,  but  which  was  to  come  after  the 
life  of  this  world  was  ended.  And,  in  fact,  the 
first  of  the  inhabitants  with  whom  they  had  to 
do,  a  few  whom  they  carried  back  with  them 
into  Spain,  were  very  soon  converted  and  made 
Christians.  For  Christopher  Columbus,  who 
was  at  the  head  of  the  expedition  by  which 
America  was  discovered,  was  a  religious-mind¬ 
ed  man;  and  the  Queen  of  Spain,  who  had 
sent  him  out,  was  very  anxious  to  do  all  she 
could  to  assist  in  spreading  the  knowledge  of 
the  Christian  faith.  Columbus  and  all  his 
crew  had  approached  the  holy  Sacraments  in  a 
very  solemn  way  before  starting  on  their  dan¬ 
gerous  voyage ;  when  first  they  saw  the  land 
which  they  had  been  so  long  looking  for,  they 
all  sang  the  Te  Deum,  as  a  hymn  of  thanks¬ 
giving  to  Almighty  God  for  having  granted 
them  the  desire  of  their  hearts,  and  having  de¬ 
livered  them  from  so  many  and  great  dangers ; 
and  when  they  actually  set  foot  on  shore,  -at 
the  same  time  that  they  planted  the  royal 
standard  of  Spain,  to  declare  that  they  took 
possession  of  the  country  in  the  name  of  their 
earthly  sovereign,  they  also  erected  a  crucifix, 
to  declare  that  they  meant  to  add  it  to  Christ’s 

kingdom  upon  earth ;  that  they  claimed  it  for 
8 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


the  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords ;  and,  as 
an  earnest  of  their  intention,  they  called  the 
island  San  Salvador,  or  the  island  of  the  Holy 
Savionr.  And  the  next  island  which  they 
discovered  they  dedicated  to  our  Blessed  Lady, 
under  the  title  of  her  Conception.  Alas,  that 
an  undertaking,  whose  beginnings  were  so 
Christian,  should  have  been  afterwards  carried 
on  by  such  unchristian  means ;  that  so  fair  a 
promise  should  have  been  soon  so  woefully 
marred 

Columbus  left  about  forty  men  in  a  fort 
which  he  built  for  them  in  one  of  the  islands, 
charged  them  to  obey  their  commander,  not  to 
quarrel  amongst  themselves,  and  above  all,  not 
to  give  offence  to  the  natives;  and  then  he  set 
sail  for  Spain,  to  carry  the  news  of  his  wonder¬ 
ful  discovery.  He  soon  came  back  again, 
bringing  with  him  those  few  natives  whom  he 
had  carried  away,  and  who  had  been  duly  in¬ 
structed  in  the  Christian  faith  and  baptized, 
and  also  a  small  band  of  zealous  priests,  who 
had  voluntarily  offered  themselves  to  under¬ 
take  the  great  work  of  converting  the  people. 
Perhaps  these  missionaries  had  formed  to  them¬ 
selves  a  very  glowing  picture  of  the  rich  har¬ 
vest  of  souls  which  awaited  them  in  this  new 


9 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


•world;  the  first-fruits  had  already  been  gather 
ed,  and  stood  there  before  them  a  pattern  of 
simplicity  and  gentleness ;  if  their  countrymen 
generally  were  of  the  same  dispositions,  what 
might  they  not  expect  as  the  reward  of  their 
labors?  But  if  such  were  their  hopes,  they 
were  soon  bitterly  disappointed.  When  they 
arrived  at  the  station  where  the  forty  Spaniards 
had  been  left,  they  found  the  fort  entirely 
demolished;  and  the  tattered  garments  and 
broken  weapons  which  lay  scattered  about  in 
the  neighborhood,  too  plainly  showed  what  had 
been  the  unhappy  fate  of  the  garrison.  The 
natives  too  did  not  come  forward  to  meet  them 
as  friends,  but  fled  from  them  as  enemies.  At 
last  one  of  the  principal  inhabitants  came  and 
told  them  what  had  happened,  and  how  this 
sad  change  had  been  brought  about.  After 
the  departure  of  Columbus,  the  soldiers  who 
had  been  left  behind  did  not  even  pretend  to 
obey  the  officer  whom  he  had  set  over  them, 
at  least  only  a  few  remained  .steadfast  in  their 
obedience ;  the  rest  behaved  just  as  they  pleas¬ 
ed,  and  by  degrees  began  to  rob  and  plunder, 
and  use  violence  towards  the  natives  with  the 
most  brutal  licentiousness.  The  consequences 
soon  followed  that  might  naturally  have  been 
10 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


expected ;  and  thus,  through  the  sins  of  man, 
this  fair  field  for  Christian  hope  and  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  Christian  zeal  was  struck  with  a  deadly 
blight  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  discovered. 

I  need  not  go  on  with  every  particular  of 
this  history  as  minutely  as  I  have  begun  it; 
telling  you  how  one  island  was  discovered  after 
another;  and  then  the  mainland  of  America, 
first  one  part  of  it  and  then  another,  and  what 
happened  to  the  natives  in  every  place;  all 
this  would  take  us  too  long;  and  besides,  I  am 
afraid  it  would  be  only  the  same  sad  story  told 
over  and  over  again.  I  will  just  take  the  his¬ 
tory  of  this  one  island,  the  island  of  St.  Do¬ 
mingo,  as  a  specimen,  which  will  give  you  a 
fair  idea  of  what  happened  elsewhere  also. 

Gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones  were 
found  in  different  parts  of  it  in  great  abund¬ 
ance  ;  and  when  this  news  was  carried  to  Spain, 
numbers  of  persons  hurried  off  to  a  country 
which  held  out  to  them  such  brilliant  hopes 
of  speedily  heaping  together  a  large  fortune. 
They  came  out  expressly  to  get  money ;  and 
like  most  persons  who  make  this  the  great  ob¬ 
ject  of  their  lives,  they  were  not  very  scrupu¬ 
lous  as  to  the  means  they  employed  for  getting 

it.  Many  of  them  were  men  of  bad  characters 

u 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


and  abandoned  lives,  even  in  their  own  coun¬ 
try  ;  and  when  they  found  themselves  at  such 
a  distance  from  home  and  in  such  new  circum¬ 
stances,  with  no  power  close  at  hand  sufficiently 
strong  to  check  or  punish  them,  and  at  the 
same  time  with  most  abundant  means  of  in¬ 
dulging  their  passions  all  around  them,  it  is 
impossible  to  describe  the  horrid  excesses  of 
which  they  were  guilty.  And  besides  these 
enormities  on  the  part  of  individuals,  the  desire 
of  gaining  gold,  and  of  gaining  it  as  speedily 
as  possible,  led  even  the  governors  themselves 
to  sanction  a  cruel  and  unjust  measure,  by 
which  the  natives  were  in  the  end  absolutely 
destroyed.  The  precious  metals  could  not  be 
obtained,  at  least  not  in  any  considerable  quan¬ 
tity,  without  the  labor  of  digging  for  them  in 
mines.  The  natives  had  never  taken  the 
trouble  to  do  this ;  they  did  not  value  gold  as 
highly  as  the  Europeans  did ;  they  only  used 
it  for  making  ornaments;  and  all  the  gold 
which  they  collected  had  been  picked  up  in 
the  beds  of  rivers,  or  found  in  some  other  ac¬ 
cidental  way.  Moreover,  the  natives  were  by 
no  means  an  industrious,  hardworking  people ; 
they  were  not  so  strong  or  so  well  able  to  en¬ 
dure  fatigue  as  the  Europeans ;  and  they  had 
12 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


never  been  used  to  it.  Nevertheless  the  Span¬ 
iards  obliged  them  to  dig,  and  perform  other 
hard  tasks,  which  were  quite  beyond  their 
strength ;  and  because  they  would  not  do  this 
willingly  and  for  wages,  as  men  hire  them¬ 
selves  to  be  day -laborers,  or  to  be  miners,  or 
to  perform  any  other  servile  work  nowa¬ 
days  in  England  or  in  any  other  civilized 
country,  therefore  the  Spaniards  declared  that 
all  the  natives  were  their  slaves ;  they  said  that 
they  had  conquered  the  country,  and  that  the 
inhabitants  must  do  whatever  they  command¬ 
ed  :  if  they  would  not  do  it  of  their  own  free 
will,  they  should  be  made  to  do  it.  You  can 
easily  imagine  what  dreadful  misery  was  thus 
brought  upon  the  poor  unoffending  people; 
some  even  put  themselves  to  death  rather  than 
suffer  such  cruel  tyranny,  and  hundreds  and 
thousands  sunk  under  the  severity  of  the  tasks 
that  were  laid  on  them.  During  the  first  fifteen 
years,  their  numbers  were  diminished  from  a 
million  to  sixty  thousand;  that  is,  only  one 
out  of  every  seventeen  survived;  and  at  the 
end  of  five  years  more,  only  fourteen  thousand 
even  of  these  survivors  remained,  that  is,  three 
out  of  every  four  had  died  from  some  cause  or 
other.  The}'-  tried  indeed  more  than  once  to 

13 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


get  rid  of  tlieir  masters,  and  to  drive  them  out 
of  the  country ;  but  what  could  be  done  by  a 
set  of  poor  naked  savages  against  men  who 
had  fire-arms  and  other  weapons  at  their  com¬ 
mand,  and  were  many  of  them  well-trained 
soldiers  besides?  Of  course  the  natives  were 
always  conquered ;  and  then  their  lot  only  be¬ 
came  the  worse  for  having  offered  any  resist¬ 
ance  to  it.  At  last,  as  many  as  survived  were 
sold  by  auction  to  the  highest  bidder,  removed 
from  the  places  where  they  had  always  lived, 
and  carried  off  to  other  distant  spots,  wherever 
their  new  masters  might  choose ;  and  in  a  very 
few  years  there  was  but  one  small  village,  hid¬ 
den  among  the  hills,  in  which  there  were  any 
of  them  left. 

All  this  while  the  Christian  priests,  who 
were  themselves  also  Spaniards,  were  lifting 
up  their  voices  against  these,  cruel  practices,  as 
contrary  to  natural  justice  and  to  the  revealed 
law  of  God ;  but  the  love  of  gold  so  possessed 
the  hearts  of  the  people  that  they  refused  to 
listen  to  any  remonstrance ;  they  even  made  a 
formal  complaint  against  a  Dominican  preacher 
for  having  dared  publicly  to  denounce  what 
they  were  doing.  Of  course  his  superiors  re¬ 
fused  to  remove  or  to  blame  him  on  this  ac- 


14 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


count ;  on  the  contrary,  they  highly  applauded 
him  for  his  faithfulness  and  courage  in  preach¬ 
ing  such  necessary  but  such  unwelcome  doc¬ 
trines.  This,  however,  is  a  part  of  the  story 
on  which  I  may  have  an  opportunity  of  talking 
to  you  more  at  length  another  time.  At  pres¬ 
ent  I  am  anxious  to  impress  upon  your  minds 
this  one  fact,  that  the  Indians — for  this  is  the 
name  by  which  the  natives  have  always  been 
called,  though  they  were  not  really  Indians — 
were  so  cruelly  treated  by  the  Spanish  settlers, 
that  they  hated  them  with  the  most  intense 
hatred  of  which  human  nature  is  capable.  I 
have  already  told  you  that  the  Indians  were  by 
nature  quite  gentle  and  even  timid;  but  the 
treatment  which  they  received  first  roused  them 
to  a  perfect  fury,  and  afterwards,  when  they 
discovered  that  all  resistance  was  useless  and 
only  increased  their  miseries,  they  settled  down 
into  a  silent,  sullen,  but  most  bitter  hatred.  I 
will  tell  you  an  anecdote  which  will  serve  to 
give  you  some  idea  of  the  state  of  feeling  en¬ 
tertained  by  these  poor  people  towards  their 
masters,  and  from  which  you  can  picture  to 
yourself  the  difficulty  which  the  missionary 
must  have  had  to  contend  against  when  he  at¬ 
tempted  to  convert  them  to  Christianity.  One 

15 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


of  their  chiefs,  who  liad  endeavored  to  prevent 
the  Spaniards  from  landing  in  one  of  the  prin¬ 
cipal  islands,  was  taken  prisoner  in  battle,  and, 
on  a  most  false  and  unjust  pretext,  was  con¬ 
demned  to  be  burned  alive.  A  priest  was  at 
the  place,  and  exerted  himself  very  much  to 
convert  the  unhappy  man  before  his  execution, 
that  so  death  might  be  to  him  the  beginning 
of  a  happy  eternity.  After  listening  for  some 
time  to  the  glowing  description  which  was 
given  to  him  of  the  never-ending  joys  of 
heaven,  of  its  infinite  and  everlasting  happi¬ 
ness,  he  suddenly  interrupted  the  preacher  with 
this  one  simple  question :  “In  this  happy  place 
of  which  you  speak,  are  there  any  Spaniards  ?” 
“Yes,”  said  the  priest;  “  but  not  those  that  are 
bad;  only  the  good  and  deserving.”  “There 
is  not  one,”  replied  the  poor  ignorant  savage, 
“that  is  not  vile  and  wicked;  I  will  never 
consent  to  go  to  a  place  where  I  shall  run  the 
risk  of  meeting  with  any  of  that  accursed  race.” 

But  it  is  time  that  we  should  proceed  to  the 
more  immediate  subject  of  our  history,  the 
Jesuits  in  Paraguay.  On  the  eastern  coast  of 
South  America — a  part  of  the  New  World 
some  thousands  of  miles  to  the  south  of  the 

islands  we  have  hitherto  been  speaking  of,  but 

16 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


inhabited,  like  them,  by  tribes  of  heathen  sav¬ 
ages — there  is  an  immense  river,  which  the 
Spaniards  called  Rio  de  la  Plata,  or  the  River 
of  Silver,  because  the  people  there  brought 
them  a  great  quantity  of  silver,  and  they 
fancied,  therefore,  that  there  must  be  rich 
mines  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
captain  of  the  vessel  which  first  entered  this 
river,  in  the  year  1516,  ventured  to  go  on 
shore  with  some  of  his  crew,  being  invited  to 
do  so  by  apparent  demonstrations  of  kindness 
on  the  part  of  the  Indians  whom  they  saw 
along  the  banks.  No  sooner  had  they  landed, 
however,  than  they  were  cruelly  put  to  death, 
their  bodies  cut  in  pieces,  roasted,  and  eaten, 
within  sight  of  the  vessel  which  they  had  left, 
but  which  was  utterly  unable  to  render  any 
assistance.  Something  of  the  same  kind  hap¬ 
pened  to  the  next  persons  who  dared  to  land 
on  this  inhospitable  coast;  but  twenty  years 
later,  (that  is,  in  the  year  1536,)  a  Venetian  ad¬ 
venturer,  who  had  been  employed  at  one  time 
by  some  English  merchants  at  Bristol,  but  who 
was  now  in  the  pay  of  the  Spanish  govern¬ 
ment,  managed  to  effect  a  landing  and  establish 
a  settlement  there,  which  was  able  to  maintain 
its  footing. 


17 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY". 


W  e  need  not  trace  the  civil  history  of  this 
settlement  through  all  its  various  fortunes;  it 
is  only  necessary  for  our  purpose  that  we 
should  know  something,  of  its  moral  and  reli¬ 
gious  character,  as  bearing  on  the  civilization 
and  conversion  of  the  savages  among  whom  it 
was  planted:  and  in  this  respect  I  am  afraid 
that  it  bore  but  too  close  a  resemblance  to  the 
other  settlements  that  have  been  already  men¬ 
tioned.  There  was  the  same  greediness  after 
gain,  the  same  violence  and  robbery,  the  same 
cruel  oppression,  as  you  have  heard  of  else¬ 
where,  and  therefore  we  need  not  repeat  it; 
and  this,  together  with  the  great  scarcity  Of 
priests,  (barely  sufficient  to  attend  to  the  Span¬ 
iards  alone,)  entirely  prevented  any  real  pro¬ 
gress  in  the  great  work  of  evangelizing  the 
natives.  As  early  as  the  year  1547,  the  chief 
city  of  the  province  had  been  made  a  bishop’s 
see,  but  the  person  who  was  first  appointed  to 
fill  it  never  took  possession.  It  was  not  until 
nine  years  later  that  a  Christian  bishop  really 
began  to  direct  in  person  the  spiritual  laborers 
in  this  portion  of  Christ’s  vineyard ;  and  both 
he  and  his  successors,  as  well  as  the  other 
bishops  settled  in  different  parts  of  the  coun¬ 
try,  continually  applied  to  the  kings  of  Spain, 
18 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


and  to  the  council  wlio  were  appointed  to  man¬ 
age  all  that  concerned  the  Indies,  for  an  addi¬ 
tional  supply  of  clergy  to  assist  them  in  the 
discharge  of  their  duty.  At  last,  in  the  year 
1586,  the  bishop  invited  one  of  the  great  reli¬ 
gious  orders  of  Europe  to  send  help  for  this 
purpose ;  the  bishop  himself  was  a  Dominican, 
but  the  missionaries  whom  he  invited  were 
Jesuits,  an  order  whose  founder  had  been  born 
about  the  time  that  Christopher  Columbus 
began  to  discover  the  new  world,  and  which, 
from  the  extraordinary  success  that  had  at¬ 
tended  their  labors  during  the  last  thirty  years 
in’  Brazil,  Peru,  and  other  parts  of  South 
America,  were  supposed  to  have  received  from 
Heaven  a  special  mission  and  a  particular 
grace  to  win  the  savage  tribes  to  the  kingdom 
of  Christ. 

The  Jesuits  obeyed  the  bishop’s  invitation, 
and  were  at  first  well  received  by  the  settlers, 
who  offered  to  build  them  a  college,  and  to 
assist  them  in  many  other  ways;  for  they 
wanted  persons  who  could  educate  their  chil¬ 
dren,  and  they  knew  that  the  Jesuits  had  a 
great  reputation  for  learning  and  zeal,  and  for 
skill  in  teaching;  so  they  gave  them  a  very 
hearty  welcome,  and  were  really  glad  to  see 

19 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


them.  But  this  did  not  last  long ;  for  one  of 
the  first  things  the  missionaries  did  was  to 
protest  against  the  cruel  treatment  of  the  In¬ 
dians,  and  to  insist  that  they  should  be  dealt 
with  more  gently  and  kindly.  This  turned 
the  settlers  against  them  at  once,  and  they 
were  now  as  anxious  to  get  rid  of  them  as  they 
had  at  first  been  thankful  to  receive  them. 
The  Jesuits  were  poor  men,  without  money  of 
their  own,  but  depending  for  their  daily  bread 
on  the  voluntary  alms  of  those  for  whose 
spiritual  good  they  had  come  so  far;  so  the 
Spaniards  thought  they  should  soon  be  able  to 
make  them  more  reasonable,  as  they  said,  by 
withholding  the  necessary  assistance ;  they 
thought  they  should  soon  starve  them  into 
obedience  and  conformity  to  their  wishes. 
“  Surely  the  Jesuits  would  never  be  so  foolish 
as  to  take  up  the  cause  of  a  set  of  poor,  wild, 
ignorant,  and  senseless  savages,  when  by  so 
doing  they  would  offend  all  the  rich  and  pow¬ 
erful  European  merchants,  and  so  run  the  risk 
of  being  driven  away,  or  even  starved  to  death 
themselves.”  But  these  greedy  and  unscrupu¬ 
lous  men  reckoned  without  their  host;  and 
though  they  succeeded  in  hindering  for  a  time 
the  good  work  which  the  missionaries  were  in- 


20 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


tended  to  accomplish,  they  could  not  do  more 
than  this.  It  was  necessary  that  one  of  them 
should  go  back  to  Madrid  to  lay  the  matter 
before  the  king  and  to  obtain  his  sanction :  not 
that  they  wanted  him  'to  render  them  active 
assistance  either  with  money  or  any  thing  else, 
but  only  that  he  should  prevent  the  Spaniards 
from  interfering  with  them,  and  using  actual 
violence  to  prevent  the  execution  of  the  plan 
which  they  proposed.  As  the  king  really 
wished  to  do  what  was  right,  and  as  the  pro¬ 
posed  plan  involved  no  outlay  of  money,  no 
fitting  out  of  ships  to  take  the  missionaries,  no 
colonists  to  accompany  them,  no  payment  of 
troops  to  protect  them,  and  no  allotments  of 
land  to  support  them  when  there,  it  was  not 
difficult  to  get  this  promise  of  protection  from 
the  government ;  and  thus  armed,  the  Jesuits 
returned  to  the  scene  of  their  labors,  A  few 
had  already  gone  before  among  those  natives 
who  lived  nearest  to  the  settlements,  and  who 
were  principally  employed  in  tilling  the  ground 
for  their  foreign  masters,  The  savages  listened 
to  them  with  gladness,  as  having  been  their 
only  friends  among  the  Europeans,  and  as  hav¬ 
ing  done  their  utmost  to  lighten  the  heavy 

yoke  under  which  they  groaned;  still  they 

21 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


had  only  succeeded  in  baptizing  some  dying 
infants,  and  instructing  a  few  of  the  better 
disposed  amongst  the  adults.  Now,  therefore, 
it  was  determined  to  attempt  the  work  of  con¬ 
version  on  a  much  larger  scale ;  to  go  to  a  dis¬ 
tance  from  any  of  the  towns  or  villages,  and  to 
see  what  could  be  done  with  those  natives  who 
had  never  suffered  from  European  cruelty,  and 
were  not  in  danger  of  being  discouraged  from 
embracing  Christianity  in  the  first  place,  or 
from  practising  it  afterwards,  by  the  wicked 
lives  of  those  by  whom  it  was  professed. 

This  was  truly  a  great  and  noble  scheme, 
but  it  was  also  beset  with  immense  and  innu¬ 
merable  difficulties.  For  how  was  Christianity 
to  be  introduced  amongst  men  who  were  dis¬ 
persed  like  wild  beasts,  buried  in  the  thickest 
forests,  or  lying  hid  in  dens  and  in  caves  of  the 
earth ;  men  who  led  a  wandering  life,  never 
fixed  in  any  one  place,  but  roaming  about 
wherever  they  could  find  the  means  of  subsist¬ 
ence,  continually  at  war  with  one  another,  and 
many  of  them  so  fierce  and  cruel  as  to  delight 
in  torturing  their  prisoners  to  death,  and  then 
feasting  on  their  flesh  ?  Surely  the  conversion 
of  such  as  these  might  almost  seem  a  hopeless 

task  ;  and  the  patient,  untiring  zeal  of  those  by 
22 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


whom  it  was  accomplished  must  deserve  to  be 
reckoned,  as  even  Protestant  writers  do  not 
hesitate  to  acknowledge,  amongst  the  most 
wonderful  and  interesting  events  in  the  history 
of  mankind. 

The  Jesuit  Fathers  then  set  out  two  and 
two,  like  the  disciples  of  our  Lord,  with  little 
more  than  a  staff  and  a  prayer-book,  accom¬ 
panied  by  some  of  the  native  Indians  who  had 
been  already  converted,  and  who  were  to  act 
as  interpreters;  and  by  these  simple  means 
they  attempted  the  execution  of  this  vast  en¬ 
terprise.  They  began  by  pointing  out  to  the 
savages  the  numerous  inconveniences  of  their 
present  mode  of  life,  whether  they  considered 
the  precarious  nature  of  their  maintenance, 
the  discomfort  of  their  dwelling-houses,  or  their 
defenceless  condition  in  the  frequent  wars  in 
which  they  were  engaged ;  and  they  invited 
them  to  come  and  live  together  in  some  settled 
spot,  to  build  houses,  and  to  cultivate  the 
ground.  The  savages  were  induced  to  lend  a 
willing  ear  to  these  representations,  partly  be¬ 
cause  they  themselves  could  recognize  the  rea¬ 
sonableness  of  what  was  said,  partly  because  the 
report  they  had  heard  of  these  black-robes,  as 
they  soon  learned  to  call  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  was 

23 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


such  as  to  give  them  confidence  in  their  sin¬ 
cerity  and  their  kind  and  charitable  intentions. 
Doubtless  thus  to  have  obtained  the  good-will 
of  the  natives  was  of  most  important  service 
to  them  towards  the  success  of  their  underta¬ 
king  ;  still,  what  remained  to  be  accomplished 
was  no  light  task ;  it  required  the  utmost  care 
and  diligence,  and  incessant  watchfulness,  to 
bring  the  work  to  perfection,  and  with  but  un¬ 
certain  hopes  of  reaping  any  fruit  from  it  after 
all.  For,  first,  the  poor  natives  had  never  been 
used  to  habits  of  steady  perseverance;  labor 
was  irksome  to  them,  and  the  temptations  to 
idleness  very  great;  and  secondly,  not  only 
was  their  character  unstable  and  easily  given 
to  change,  but  their  understanding  also  was 
very  limited ;  so  much  so  indeed,  that  at  first 
it  was  almost  a  matter  of  doubt  whether  they 
could  ever  be  made  to  understand  the  mys¬ 
teries  of  the  Christian  faith  sufficiently  to  en¬ 
able  them  to  become  partakers  of  the  holy 
Sacraments. 

Then,  again,  besides  these  difficulties  and  dis¬ 
couragements  from  within,  they  were  also  ex¬ 
posed  to  many  and  very  serious  dangers  from 
without.  After  some  of  their  new  settlements 
had  been  established  for  a  few  years,  and  had 

24 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


grown  to  a  considerable  size,  they  attracted  the 
attention  of  certain  brigands — half  Indians, 
half  Europeans — who  occupied  a  part  of  the 
country  by  themselves,  and  lived  entirely  by 
plunder.  These  men  cast  their  eyes  on  the 
increasing  villages,  and  thought  they  furnished 
a  most  favorable  opportunity  for  adding  to  the 
number  of  their  slaves;  they  therefore  broke 
in  upon  them  from  time  to  time,  and  killed,  or 
carried  away  prisoners,  several  thousands  of 
the  inhabitants.  In  this  way  they  entirely  de¬ 
stroyed  ten  or  twelve  of  the  most  flourishing 
Christian  colonies,  until  at  last  the  missionaries 
found  it  necessary  to  transplant  all  who  re¬ 
mained — men,  women,  and  children,  young 
and  old,  strong  and  infirm — to  transplant  them 
all  to  some  more  distant  and  safer  place.  It 
was  necessary  to  abandon  all  the  fruits  of  their 
past  labors,  and  to  travel  over  rocks  and  moun¬ 
tains  and  rivers,  perhaps  for  several  weeks  to¬ 
gether,  over  a  space  of  four  or  five  hundred 
miles,  until  they  could  find  another  more 
secure  resting-place  suited  to  their  purpose. 

Indeed,  there  is  scarcely  a  danger  mentioned 
by  St.  Paul  in  his  second  letter  to  his  Corinth¬ 
ian  converts  as  having  happened  to  himself, 
which  may  not  be  exactly  repeated  concerning 

25 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


these  apostolic  men,  who  were  trying  to  con¬ 
vert  the  Indians.  No  one  can  doubt  that  they 
were  “in  journeying  often.”  One  of  them, 
writing  an  account  of  his  own  labors  in  this 
particular  in  a  private  letter  addressed  to  a 
friend,  reckons  up  the  journeys  that  he  had 
made  in  a  period  of  eight  years,  and  the  total 
amounts  to  no  less  than  ten  thousand  miles. 
And  the  reader  must  remember  that  these 
journeys  were  not  made,  as  in  modern  days, 
with  the  advantage  of  steam-engines  and  rail¬ 
roads,  not  even  with  the  ordinary  ‘advantages 
of  a  highway  and  some  kind  of  conveyance ; 
most  commonly  they  were  performed  where 
there  was  no  road  at  all,  and  where  not  even 
a  beast  of  burden  could  pass.  Sometimes  it 
was  necessary  to  travel  above  a  hundred  miles 
with  a  hatchet  in  their  hands  to  cut  a  passage 
through  the  forests  before  they  could  reach  the 
dwelling-places  of  those  they  went  to  find ; 
sometimes  they  had  to  wade  through  bogs  and 
fens,  to  cross  deep  and  rapid  rivers,  and  to 
climb  up  steep  and  craggy  mountains,  with 
nothing  but  the  bare  ground  or  a  wretched 
mat  on  which  to  rest  their  weary  limbs  at 
night.  They  were  also  “  in  perils  of  waters 

for  the  rivers  and  lakes  they  had  to  cross  were 
26 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


often  full  of  rapids  and  currents  which  they 
were  not  aware  of,  and  which  exposed  them  to 
great  dangers.  Moreover,  nothing  was  more 
common  in  that  country,  than  for  the  rivers 
suddenly  to  swell  and  overflow  to  such  a  de¬ 
gree  as  almost  instantaneously  to  convert  whole 
plains  into  one  vast  sea.  One  day,  as  a  Jesuit 
Father  with  his  catechist  and  seven  or  eight 
Indians,  (some  of  whom  had  been  baptized  and 
others  were  only  catechumens,)  were  crossing  a 
plain  somewhere  between  the  rivers  Paraguay 
and  Parana,  they  .were  suddenly  overtaken  by 
one  of  these  extraordinary  inundations.  For 
a  while  they  waded  along  up  to  their  waists  in 
water,  but  were  soon  forced  to  have  recourse 
to  the  highest  trees  they  could  find,  as  the  only 
means  of  saving  their  lives.  In  this  situation 
they  remained  for  more  than  twenty-four  hours, 
amid  a  frightful  storm  of  rain  and  thunder  and 
lightning.  By  and  by,  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  the  missionary  perceived,  by  means  of 
the  bright  flashes  of  lightning  that  continually 
lit  up  the  heavens,  one  of  his  Indians,  who  had 
taken  refuge  in  a  distant  tree,  swimming  to¬ 
wards  him  and  crying  out,  as  soon  as  he  was 
near  enough  to  be  heard,  that  three  catechu¬ 
mens  and  three  Christians  were  on  the  point 

27 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


of  dying,  and  most  earnestly  requested  his 
assistance.  Upon  this,  the  good  Father  first 
attended  to  the  wants  of  the  catechist  who  was 
on  the  same  tree  with  himself,  and  fastened 
him  securely  to  one  of  the  upper  branches,  for 
he  was  well-nigh  exhausted,  and  then  jumped 
into  the  water  to  follow  the  Indian  who  had 
come  to  call  him.  At  last  he  reached  the 
catechumens,  baptized  them  as  they  lay  cling¬ 
ing  to  the  branches,  from  which  they  presently 
fell  and  -were  drowned ;  then  he  hastened  to 
the  three  neophytes,  and  two  of  these  also  were 
drowned  a  few  minutes  later ;  after  which,  he 
again  swam  back  to  his  own  tree.  “  In  perils 
from  the  Gentiles”  of  course  they  were  ;  when¬ 
ever  they  met  with  a  troop  of  native  Indians, 
they  generally  found  them  armed,  and  ready 
to  kill  them,  without  even  hearing  a  word  of 
their  message ;  and  this  lot  actually  befell  many 
of  their  number.  They  even  presented  them¬ 
selves  knowingly  and  wilfully  before  a  whole 
army  of  enemies,  trusting  that  God  would  so 
bless  the  words  that  they  should  speak,  as  to 
soften  their  hearts  and  dispose  them  to  receive 
the  Gospel ;  or  at  other  times,  they  would  pen¬ 
etrate  alone  and  unarmed  into  the  presence  of 

a  cacique ,  or  chief,  whom  they  knew  to  enter- 
28 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


tain  tlie  most  bitter  hatred  of  the  Christian 
name,  to  have  murdered  many  of  their  priests, 
and  frequently  to  have  plundered  their  settle¬ 
ments.  They  were  also  “  in  perils  from  their 
own  nation;”  the  Spaniards  were  among  the 
worst  enemies  they  had;  not  only  by  reason 
of  the  strong  prejudice  which  their  bad  ex¬ 
ample  had  raised  against  Christians  and  Eu¬ 
ropeans  generally,  but  also  in  many  other 
ways  by  which  they  strove  to  hinder  or  to 
mar  their  work.  “Labor  and  painfulness, 
hunger  and  thirst,  and  fastings  often,”  they 
could  not  escape  from;  for  how  were  such 
things  to  be  guarded  against  in  their  long  and 
difficult  expeditions  ?  At  the  best  of  times,  a 
handful  of  Indian  corn,  or  something  equally 
poor  and  simple,  was  their  most  luxurious 
food;  but  it  often  happened  that  even  their 
little  store  of  this  was  finished  long  before  they 
had  arrived  at  their  journey’s  end;  and  then 
the  travellers  had  no  other  food  but  such  wild 
roots  and  fruits  as  they  could  manage  to  find. 
We  read  that  they  were  sometimes  forced  to 
suck  the  dew  off  the  leaves  to  quench  their 
thirst,  and  even  to  squeeze  a  handful  of  damp 
earth  against  their  lips,  for  the  sake  of  extract¬ 
ing,  if  possible,  a  drop  of  water  with  which  to 

29 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


moisten  their  tongue  and  allay  the  thirst  that 
tormented  them  under  the  excessive  heats  of  a 
burning  sun. 

I  will  give  you  the  details  of  one  of  their 
expeditions  somewhat  at  length,  that  you  may 
be  able  to  judge  of  the  difficulties  they  were 
exposed  to,  and  of  the  perseverance  which  they 
showed  in  overcoming  them.  A  Jesuit  Father 
set  out,  accompanied  by  one  hundred  Indians, 
who  were  already  instructed  and  baptized,  to 
convert  a  savage  tribe  that  lived  at  a  consider¬ 
able  distance.  A  very  long  and  violent  storm, 
which  came  on  soon  after  they  had  started, 
rough  gusts  of  wind  and  overflowing  of  all  the 
rivers,  hindered  them  so  much  in  their  pro¬ 
gress,  that  in  nineteen  days  they  had  only  ad¬ 
vanced  about  forty  miles.  Then  they  came  to 
a  very  thick  forest,  through  which  they  had  to 
cut  their  road.  The  priest  led  the  way  with  a 
hatchet  in  his  hand,  working  as  hard  as  any 
of  them,  encouraging  the  others  both  by  word 
and  example,  fetching  water  for  them  to  drink, 
and  serving  them  in  a  thousand  other  ways. 
It  was  a  long  and  painful  task;  for  whole 
clouds  of  venomous  flies  or  gnats,  called  mos¬ 
quitoes,  attacked  them  by  day  and  night ;  and 
the  forest  was  about  thirty  miles  in  depth,  so 

30 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


that  it  took  them  nearly  three  weeks  to  trav¬ 
erse  it.  At  last  they  came  to  the  other  side ; 
but  by  this  time  their  provisions  were  exhausted, 
and  they  were  obliged  to  go  home  again.  The 
next  year  this  zealous  priest  set  out  again ;  and 
this  time  they  reached  farther  than  before ;  but 
in  the  end  they  narrowly  escaped  being  all 
drowned.  Whilst  they  were  cutting  through 
a  second  forest,  the  waters  of  a  neighboring 
river  rose  and  overflowed,  so  that  it  was  as 
much  as  they  could  do  to  return  to  the  place 
from  whence  they  had  come.  His  resolution, 
however,  was  not  broken  even  by  this  second 
disappointment :  in  the  following  year  he  once 
more  set  out  on  the  same  expedition ;  and  now 
he  succeeded  in  reaching  the  first  village  of  the 
tribe  he  had  so  long  been  seeking ;  and  as  they 
seemed  to  show  the  most  promising  disposi¬ 
tions,  he  hoped  that  he  was  at  length  about  to 
receive  the  fruit  of  his  many  labors.  It  hap¬ 
pened  that  he  was  very  shortly  afterwards  ap¬ 
pointed  to  some  post  of  authority  in  his  order, 
so  that  he  was  obliged  to  go  away  to  another 
place.  Another  Father,  however,  immediately 
succeeded  him,  and  was  received  with  every 
possible  sign  of  friendship  and  joy.  The  con¬ 
version  of  the  whole  nation  seemed  already 

31 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


begun,  and  the  Father  had  gone  off  the  dis¬ 
tance  of  a  few  days’  journey,  to  look  for  a 
fitting  place  in  which  to  establish  this  new 
settlement,  when  suddenly  the  natives  threw 
off  the  mask,  and  treacherously  murdered  those 
of  his  companions  whom  he  had  left  behind. 

Nor  must  you  think  that  this  was  a  solitary 
instance,  and  that  nothing  at  all  like  it  ever 
happened  in  other  parts  of  that  wild  country ; 
on  the  contrary,  I  could  tell  you  of  some  of 
these  missionaries  who  had  been  gladly  wel¬ 
comed  by  the  savages,  and  even  used  by  them 
as  a  protection  against  the  settlers,  or  against 
other  savages  with  whom  they  were  at  war, 
yet  were  afterwards  betrayed  and  murdered 
by  them;  of  others  who  sank  under  the  fa¬ 
tigue  and  hardships  of  their  long  expeditions, 
— on  one  occasion  alone,  sixteen  of  their  com¬ 
panions  perished  in  the  course  of  a  nine 
months’  journey; — of  more  than  twenty  who 
were  martyred  in  one  way  or  another,  in  dif¬ 
ferent  parts  of  this  same  province ;  in  a  word, 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  name  any  labor  or 
suffering  which  belongs  to  the  life  of  a  mis¬ 
sionary,  that  was  not  joyfully  endured  by 
these  zealous  servants  of  the  Church,  in  order 
that  they  might  convert  the  Indians.  It  is 

32 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


time,  however,  that  I  should  now  show  you 
something  of  the  fruits  of  those  labors,  some¬ 
thing  that  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  proof  of 
the  presence  of  Christ’s  blessing  upon  them 
according  to  His  own  promise,  “  Behold,  I  am 
with  you  all  days,  even  to  the  consummation 
of  the  world.” 

It  has  been  already  mentioned  that  the 
Fathers  began  by  persuading  as  many  of  the 
natives  as  they  could  to  leave  off  their  roving 
way  of  life,  and  to  come  together  into  one 
place,  there  to  build  houses,  to  cultivate  the 
ground,  and  to  form  a  regular  community,  and 
that  their  earliest  attempts  in  this  matter  were 
much  forwarded  by  the  good  report  which  had 
gone  abroad  concerning  them  in  consequence 
of  the  opposition  they  had  made  to  the  cruelties 
and  oppression  practised  by  the  other  Euro¬ 
pean  settlers.  I  must  reserve  to  another  occa¬ 
sion  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  these  settlements  were  both  begun  and 
multiplied,  as  also  of  their  internal  constitution, 
their  civil  and  military  government,  and  va¬ 
rious  other  interesting  details;  at  present  we 
are  only  concerned  with  them  in  their  religious 
character,  as  containing  vast  numbers  of  per¬ 
sons  who  were  converted  by  the  preaching 

33 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


of  Catholic  missionaries,  from  heathenism  to 
Christianity.  For  this  was  the  result  of  the 
admirable  plan  which  the  Jesuits  adopted,  as 
indeed  it  had  also  been  the  great  end  which 
from  the  first  they  had  always  had  in  view : 
“Our  design  is,”  said  one  of  themselves,  “first 
to  labor  to  make  these  Indians  men,  that  so 
we  may  be  the  better  able  afterwards  to  make 
them  Christians;”  and  their  efforts  were  so 
abundantly  rewarded,  that  when  the  settle¬ 
ments  were  in  their  highest  state  of  perfection, 
it  is  computed  that  they  contained  about 
800,000  souls,  every  one  of  whom  had  been 
duly  baptized  and  instructed  in  the  Christian 
faith. 

The  means  by  which  this  extraordinary  re¬ 
sult  was  brought  about  were  as  simple  as  they 
were  effectual.  As  soon  as  a  few  hundred  In¬ 
dians  had  been  persuaded  to  settle  down  any¬ 
where,  the  Fathers  caused  a  church  to  be  built 
in  the  most  central  spot  of  the  settlement. 
This  church  was  made  entirely  of  wood,  but 
on  a  large  and  lofty  scale,  so  as  to  be  mani¬ 
festly  the  most  important  building  in  the  place, 
all  the  surrounding  houses  being  of  the  height 
of  one  story  only.  The  children  belonging  to 
the  few  families  thus  assembled  were  usually 

34 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


baptized  at  once,  and  so  brought  up,  like  other 
Christian  children,  from  their  earliest  infancy 
in  the  practice  of  their  holy  religion,  and  in¬ 
structed  in  all  its  doctrines.  With  the  adults, 
however,  they  proceeded,  of  course,  in  a  dif¬ 
ferent  manner;  these  they  did  not  venture 
to  baptize  until  they  were  satisfied  by  long 
and  careful  preparation  that  they  would  re¬ 
ceive  the  Sacrament  with  proper  dispositions ; 
and  it  was  some  time  before  they  began  to  say 
Mass  and  to  administer  the  Sacraments  in  the 
presence  of  the  people.  For  to  bring  men 
who  were  utterly  void  of  the  first  principles  of 
humanity,  the  only  business  of  whose  lives  it 
had  heretofore  been  to  satisfy  their  brutish 
appetites,  and  whose  understandings  had  been 
debased  by  the  long-continued  indulgence  of 
their  passions,  sometimes  also  by  the  most 
grovelling  superstitions, — to  bring  such  men 
as  these  to  comprehend  the  sublime  mysteries 
of  the  Christian  faith,  and  to  bind  themselves 
to  the  observance  of  its  moral  obligations,  was 
a  difficult  and  truly  an  apostolic  work. 

But  truly,  also,  those  to  whom  it  was  in¬ 
trusted  were  animated  with  an  apostolic  zeal ; 
and  the  same  God  who  “  added  to  the  Church 
about  3000  souls  in  one  day”  after  the  first 

35 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


sermon  of  St.  Peter  in  Jerusalem,  was  equally 
present  with  these  children  of  St.  Ignatius  in 
South  America,  and  added  thousands  upon 
thousands  to  the  true  fold,  by  means  of  their 
preaching.  By  degrees  they  gained  first  one 
and  then  another,  the  children  often  being  the 
instructors  of  their  parents,  and  the  converted 
adults  persuading  and  reclaiming  their  breth¬ 
ren.  Every  year,  as  soon  as  the  rainy  season 
was  ended,  and  the  waters,  with  which  a  great 
part  of  the  country  were  wont  to  be  flooded 
at  those  times,  had  gone  down,  many  of  these 
zealous  converts  would  set  out  on  an  expedi¬ 
tion  to  distant  hills  and  forests,  to  see  if  they 
could  not  induce  natives  from  other  tribes  to 
come  and  join  them.  There  was  often  quite  a 
rivalry  between  different  parties  of  these  con¬ 
verts  as  to  which  would  bring  back  the  largest 
number  of  savages ;  and  it  was  not  at  all  un¬ 
usual  to  see  them  returning  with  several  hun¬ 
dreds  in  their  train.  These  were  received  with 
the  greatest  gladness  by  the  rest  of  the  settlers, 
invited  to  partake  of  their  hospitality,  had 
houses  and  food  provided  for  them ;  and  hav¬ 
ing  been  duly  instructed  and  baptized,  them¬ 
selves  in  process  of  time  became  missionaries 
in  their  turn,  and  went  out  in  quest  of  others. 

36 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


In  this  way  a  settlement,  which  began  with  a 
few  hundreds,  increased  by  and  by  to  several 
thousands,  until  they  were  obliged  to  separate 
perhaps,  and  form  a  second  or  even  a  third' 
settlement  elsewhere.  At  other  times,  one  of 
the  two  priests  belonging  to  a  settlement,  (for 
there  were  generally  two  in  each,)  would  set 
out  with  a  few  of  the  most  earnest  and  best- 
instructed  of  his  converts  to  carry  the  Gospel 
to  a  distant  tribe.  As  soon  as  they  had 
reached  the  tribe,  they  used  to  enter  boldly 
into  the  midst  of  them,  often  carrying  a  cru¬ 
cifix  or  a  picture  of  our  Blessed  Lady  before 
them,  and  chanting  the  Litanies,  exactly  as  we 
read  that  St.  Augustine  and  his  companions 
did,  when  they  went  over  to  convert  the  Pa¬ 
gan  Anglo-Saxons :  then,  if  either  the  priest 
or  any  of  the  natives  he  had  brought  with 
him  understood  the  language  of  the  tribe 
they  had  met  with,  he  would  immediately 
begin  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  them.  But  if, 
as  not  unfrequently  happened,  neither  the 
priest  nor  any  of  his  companions  could  speak 
the  language,  he  would  point  to  his  crucifix  or 
picture,  and  by  means  of  signs  explain  to  them 
in  the  best  way  he  could  that  he  was  come  to 
announce  to  them  a  new  religion,  whereof 

37 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


these  were  the  symbols,  and  which  should 
make  them  happy  both  in  this  world  and  in 
the  next.  He  would  make  them  small  pres¬ 
ents  of  beads  or  other  trifles,  of  little  value  in 
themselves,  but  which  the  natives  prized 
highly ;  and  having  thereby  gained  their  good¬ 
will,  he  would  at  last  persuade  the  chief  to 
send  two  or  three  of  his  subjects  along  with 
him,  that  so  they  might  learn  his  language, 
and  be  able  to  return  with  him  again  the  fol¬ 
lowing  year  to  act  as  interpreters.  Many 
tribes  were  thus  converted  to  the  faith,  and 
became  Christian  settlements;  or  if  the  tribe 
was  small,  and  surrounded  by  others  of  a  more 
savage  disposition,  which  refused  to  be  con¬ 
verted,  the  whole  tribe  would  sometimes  leave 
their  ancient  homes  and  join  the  nearest  settle¬ 
ment  already  established. 

It  only  remains  that  we  should  inquire 
whether  the  conversion  of  these  tribes  was 
real  as  well  as  nominal ;  whether  these  thou¬ 
sands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  savages  became 
Christians  in  deed  as  well  as  in  name.  For  a 
suspicion  might  arise  in  the  minds  of  some  of 
our  readers,  that  to  bring  them  to  an  outward 
profession  of  the  faith  was  no  such  hard  task ; 
that  is,  that  though  there  might  have  been  dif- 

38 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


Acuities  in  the  way  of  persuading  them,  in  the 
first  place,  to  come  and  try  this  new  mode  of 
life,  yet  that  the  moment  they  could  be  pre¬ 
vailed  upon  to  do  this,  they  could  not  fail  to 
be  so  struck  by  its  many  advantages  as  to  be 
induced  to  adopt  it  themselves ;  that  the  pro¬ 
fession  of  Christianity,  therefore,  might  have 
been  received  only  as'  a  part  and  parcel  of  this 
happier  and  more  comfortable  way  of  living,  a 
necessary  condition  without  which  it  was  not 
possible  to  obtain  all  the  superior  advantages 
of  civilization,  but  not  as  binding  them  in  any 
way  to  a  change  of  conduct,  or  imposing  upon 
them  any  form  of  religious  belief. 

Such  a  suspicion,  I  say,  might  naturally 
suggest  itself  to  the  reader’s  mind ;  neverthe¬ 
less  it  is  clear  from  the  testimony  both  of  eye¬ 
witnesses  and  of  facts,  that  in  truth  the  people 
really  did  become  Christians  in  heart  and  in 
practice  no  less  than  in  profession ;  nay  more, 
that  they  became  very  patterns  of  Christian 
virtue.  The  modesty  and  recollection  of  their 
behavior  in  church  was  such  as  to  astonish 
even  the  missionaries  themselves :  when  they 
recited  the  act  of  contrition,  with  which  the 
preachers  always  concluded  their  sermons,  the 
church  rang  again  with  their  sobs  and  sighs ; 

39 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


when  they  approached  the  sacrament  of  pen¬ 
ance,  though  the  faults  they  had  to  accuse 
themselves  of  were  often  so  slight  that  they 
were  scarcely  sufficient  matter  for  absolution, 
yet  they  could  not  confess  them  without  shed¬ 
ding  torrents  of  tears.  If  at  any  time  they 
suffered  themselves  to  be  overcome  by  tempt¬ 
ation,  so  as  to  fall  into  any  greater  sin,  they 
would  immediately  leave  the  business  they 
were  engaged  in,  whatever  it  might  be,  and 
run  to  the  priest  to  confess  their  fault  and  to 
wash  away  its  guilt  in  the  sacrament  of  pen¬ 
ance.  If  the  fault  they  had  committed  was 
public,  so  that  they  had  given  scandal  by  it, 
they  gladly  performed  public  penance,  that 
they  might  make  what  reparation  they  were 
able,  and  that  the  contagion  of  bad  example 
might  not  spread  among  the  flock.  It  often 
happened  on  these  occasions,  that  others,  who 
had  committed  the  same  fault  in  private  as 
they  now  saw  punished  in  public,  used  to  come 
forward  of  their  own  accord,  publicly  accuse 
themselves,  and  beg  to  be  allowed  to  suffer  the 
same  penance.  This  reminds  us  of  what  we 
read  of  the  early  Church;  and  indeed  every 
body  who  visited  these  settlements,  and  had 
an  opportunity  of  examining  them  at  all 

40 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


closely,  was  always  struck  with  the  resem¬ 
blance  which  they  bore  to  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  first  Christians.  One  of  the 
missionaries  themselves,  writing  to  a  friend, 
says,  “  There  is  no  suffering  we  would  not 
voluntarily  undergo  for  these  poor  Indians; 
for  we  are  eye-witnesses  of  their  docility,  of 
the  ardent  love  which  they  have  for  all  that 
concerns  the  service  of  God,  and  of  their  exact 
obedience  to  all  the  commandments  of  the  law 
of  Christ.  They  no  longer  know  what  it  is  to 
indulge  in  fraud,  theft,  revenge,  drunkenness, 
impurity,  and  all  those  other  vices  which  were 
formerly  so  deeply  rooted  among  them.  I 
confidently  assure  you,  and  have  no  fear  that 
any  one  will  accuse  me  of  exaggeration,  that 
these  men,  once  abandoned  to  the  grossest 
vices,  present  to  our  eyes  (now  that  they  are 
become  Christians)  the  innocence  and  the  holi¬ 
ness  of  the  first  believers.”  “I  have  often 
visited  the  Jesuits’  missions  in  Paraguay,” 
says  the  Bishop  of  Buenos  Ayres,  (a  religious 
of  the  order  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  instituted  for 
the  redemption  of  captives,)  writing  to  the 
king  of  Spain;  “and  in  all  those  numerous 
towns,  composed  of  Indians  naturally  given  to 
all  manner  of  vice,  there  reigns  so  much  inno- 

41 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


cence,  that  I  do  not  believe  a  single  mortal 
sin  is  committed  in  them;  the  extraordinary 
watchfulness  of  their  pastors  prevents  the  com¬ 
mission  of  even  the  slightest  faults.”  “  The 
union  and  the  charity  which  prevails  among 
these  Christians  is  perfect,”  writes  a  Capuchin 
priest  who  had  spent  three  or  four  weeks  in  a 
very  large  settlement  numbering  30,000  In¬ 
dians,  under  the  direction  of  four  Jesuit 
Fathers;  “they  spend  their  whole  time  in 
prayer,  and  in  labor  to  provide  for  their  fam¬ 
ilies.  All  approach  the  holy  sacraments  every 
month,  and  many  of  them  every  week.  Some, 
inspired  by  a  special  grace,  aim  at  evangelical 
perfection ;  and  even  those  who  are  not  guided 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  this  degree  of  perfection, 
yet  lead  a  life  of  innocence  not  inferior  to  that 
of  the  first  Christians.” 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  evidence  of 
this  kind ;  but  what  has  already  been  quoted 
is  more  than  enough  to  convince  us  of  the 
reality  of  the  conversion  that  was  wrought  in 
the  lives  and  hearts  of  these  savages.  And 
truly  when  we  compare  this  description  of 
them  with  their  former  miserable  condition, 
we  cannot  for  a  moment  doubt  but  that  this 
change  could  only  have  been  wrought  by  the 

42 


THE  JESUITS  IN  PARAGUAY. 


power  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  The  missionaries 
must  have  been,  as  St.  Paul  speaks,  only 
“  God’s  coadjutors  they  “  planted  and 
watered,”  but  it  was  He  that  “  gave  the  in¬ 
crease.” 

What  a  wonderful  and  convincing  testimony 
then  does  this  history  afford  to  the  divinity  of 
the  Catholic  Church !  It  was  she  that  received 
the  commission  to  go  unto  the  whole  world 
and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature,  and 
to  her  was  the  promise  made  that  Christ  would 
be  with  her  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world ; 
it  is  by  her,  therefore,  and  by  her  alone,  that 
the  commission  has  ever  been  faithfully  ex¬ 
ecuted,  or  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  ever 
been  truly  realized.  There  is  not  a  single  Prot¬ 
estant  sect  in  the  world,  however  numerous  or 
however  zealous,  which  can  produce  so  manifest  a 
proof  of  the  presence  of  Christ’s  blessing  upon 
their  labors. f 


*  1  Cor.  iii.  9. 

t  See  the  sixth  and  seventh  of  Cardinal  Wiseman’s  “  Lec¬ 
tures  on  the  principal  Doctrines  and  Practices  of  the  Catholie 
Church.”  Dolman,  London. 

43 


. 


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Turkey  morocco,  extra  gilt  edge,  plates,  .  .  .  1  00 


If(j‘  All  these  Prayer-Books  are  bound  in  Velvet  with  rich 
mountings,  Papier  Mach'e,  Antique ,  with  various  new  styles 
constantly  adding ,  and  sold  at  the  cheapest  possible  prices. 


•* 


©— - 

E.  DUNIGAN  <fe  BROTHER’S  PUBLICATIONS. 


THE  HOME  LIBRARY: 

SUITED  FOR  GIFT-BOOKS  AND  PRIZES,  AS  WELL  AS  FOR 
FAMILY  READING,  SCHOOL  LIBRARIES,  <&C. 

18  mo.,  in  eleven  vols.,  cloth  binding.  Price  of  the  set, 
$4  13,  or  single  volumes,  38  cents  each. 
ZENOSIUS,  or  the  Pilgrim  Convert.  By  the  Rev.  C.  C.  Pise,  D.D. 
FATHER  FELIX.  By  Chas.  Jas.  Cannon,  Esq. 

* 

TEARS  OX  THE  DIADEM.  By  Mrs.  A.  H.  Dorset. 

THORNBERRY  ABBEY.  A  Tale  of  the  Times. 

THE  SISTER  OF  CHARITY.  2  vols.  By  Mrs.  Anna  H.  Dorset. 

JULIA  ORMOND,  or  the  New  Settlement.  By  the  Authoress 
of  the  Two  Schools. 

THE  ELDER'S  HOUSE,  or  the  Three  Converts. 

JESSIE  LINDEN. 

FRANK,  or  the  Painter’s  Progress,  and  What  a  Mother  can 
endure.  From  the  Flemish  of  Hendrik  Conscience. 

FASHION,  or  Siska  Von  Roosemnel.  From  the  Flemish  of 
Hendrik  Conscience. 

(extracts  from  notices.) 

The  Dublin  Review  of  October,  1848,  says  of  this  series: — 
“  These  little  works  form  part  of  a  series  which  we  hope  to  see 
continued,  and  which,  under  the  name  of  the  “  Home  Library,” 
have  been  collected  and  given  to  the  public  by  E.  Dunigan,  of 
New-York  Those  works  which  we  have  seen,  all  seek,  more  or 
less  strenuously,  the  advancement  of  the  Catholic  faith,  and  are  ad¬ 
mirable  for  good  sense  and  morality.” 

The  London  Tablet  says  : — “  This  new  series  of  Catholic  Books 
of  pious  instruction  and  innocent  recreation,  is  published  in 
New-York.  They  are  neatly  printed,  handsomely  bound,  and 
form  very  suitable  presents  for  young  Catholics.” 

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